There strength and ease in graceful union meet,
Though polished, subtle, and though poignant, sweet;
Yet powerful to abash the front of crime,
And crimson error’s cheek with sportive rhyme.
Gifford.
As the toga had, since the time of Augustus, been only worn by the higher orders, whilst the common people were content with the tunica, it is clear that the words verba togæ signify the language of polished society. One cause, therefore, of the difficulty of the style of Persius may be our want of familiarity with the conversational Latin used in his time by the superior classes. Excessive subtlety may have been mistaken for refinement; and an affectation of philosophy, and an enigmatical style, may cause obscurity to us which was quite intelligible to his contemporaries.
It is evident that Persius had carefully studied, and was quite well acquainted with, the Satires of Horace; but the influence which Horace produced upon his mind went no further than to impress upon his memory certain phrases which he reproduced in a more perplexed form, more in unison with the fashionable Latin of his day. The expression of Horace—
—— naso suspendis adunco
Ignotos,[[1068]]
becomes, in the Satires of Persius—